


Day Four: Blood Moon/Lunar Eclipse

by Euphorion



Series: Writober [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Blood, M/M, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 14:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8211802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euphorion/pseuds/Euphorion
Summary: “Remember,” he said in that same strange, soft voice that Daichi had only heard in the rare moments that Suga let him watch his spellwork. “No matter what happens—no matter what you see—you can’t pass through the circle.” He indicated the chalk line that separated them. “And you cannot, seriously cannot, touch me. Okay?”
  “Okay,” Daichi said, reluctant. He knew it was stretching the rules for him to be here at all, but he didn’t like how that sounded. Didn’t like that Suga was doing this, but apparently it came with the territory. Suga could work magic—had powers beyond human comprehension—in exchange for a few very important responsibilities.  Daichi had already made the Spider-man joke once tonight. It hadn’t made him feel better.





	

Suga took a step forward—exactly a step, his right heel against the toe of his left sneaker. Leaning down, he drew a line at the tip of his right toe, white chalk showing faint against the grey of the roof. The wind was starting to pick up around him, shifting through the leaves of the trees in the park. 

“Hold the light steady,” he said softly, and Daichi steadied the hand that held his cell phone flashlight with his other, biting his lip. It was hard not to watch his friend instead of the rooftop; Suga moved with such studied, almost mathematical grace. He lifted his right foot again and placed it at a 90 degree angle to his left, like a ballet dancer practicing his footwork. He leaned down again, bending almost in half, to write something that looked like a series of alien numbers, extending from the line where his toes had been to where they were now. 

“Remember,” he said in that same strange, soft voice that Daichi had only heard in the rare moments that Suga let him watch his spellwork. “No matter what happens—no matter what you see—you can’t pass through the circle.” He indicated the chalk line that separated them. “And you cannot, seriously cannot, touch me. Okay?”

“Okay,” Daichi said, reluctant. He knew it was stretching the rules for him to be here at all, but he didn’t like how that sounded. Didn’t like that Suga was doing this, but apparently it came with the territory. Suga could work magic—had powers beyond human comprehension—in exchange for a few very important responsibilities.

Daichi had already made the Spider-man joke once tonight. It hadn’t made him feel better.

“Daichi,” Suga said, voice serious, and Daichi looked up at him. The moon was rising over his left shoulder, huge and blood-red. It looked—wrong, cast Suga into strange pearly shadow, like he perhaps was the moon that should be, silver and serious and watchful and good. He licked his lips, and for the first time Daichi saw fear in his eyes. “I need you to promise.”

Daichi–god, Daichi wanted to touch him _now_ , and nothing had even happened yet. He clenched his jaw. “I promise,” he said.

Suga watched him for a moment longer. The wind tugged at Daichi’s t-shirt, ran cold fingers through his hair, but Suga was still, still, still. Finally he nodded. “Turn off your light.”

Daichi turned off the flashlight app, or. Tried to. He flicked the switch; the light didn’t vanish, but hung, for a moment, and then bled away from him, pooling in the chalk lines that Suga had drawn on the rooftop, making them blaze with pure white light. When he was fully enclosed in the circle, Suga took a breath, spun to face the moon, and began to speak.

His voice sounded like him at first, a little shaky and nervous, and then the shake in it seemed to shake it apart—he was speaking in fragments, in pauses, in silences and then sounds and then silences. The wind rose, and Daichi had to shield his face for a moment from a gust that threatened to bowl him over. When he raised his eyes again Suga was drawing something from his pocket, flicking it open. It glinted in the bronze moonlight: a knife, his pocket knife. Daichi had seen him grab it from his room earlier, had assumed it was for cutting up ingredients or something, but Suga had nothing with him, his backpack was resting against the wall—

Slowly, his shattered speech still whipping around him on the wind, Suga raised his wrist and cut a long, deep cut in the vein of his left wrist.

Daichi started forward despite himself, though he managed to stop before reaching him. “Suga—!”

Suga didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge him at all. He held his left arm perfectly horizontally, palm outward as if warding off the light of the moon. Blood—almost too red, illuminated from above and below—dripped from his open wound onto the roof, pooling at his feet. The fingers of his right hand were drumming on his leg in what Daichi recognized as a nervous tic, not spellcraft; his back was arched, his spine visible through his shirt. Daichi felt as if he could almost hear him breathing between syllables now, could almost feel the world breathe with him. 

In. The wind shifted through the trees around them, flirting with Daichi’s clothes from every direction at once. Out. The wind blew back from the rooftop, clearing trash from the streets and rattling through fences and recycling bins. In. Daichi felt caught, suspended, crushed in some impossibly huge fist. Out. Dizzied, light-headed, his heart pounding at with his sudden release.

From the pool of blood at Suga’s feet droplets began to rise, glinting with the same silver light as his circle and his runes. Suga’s knife was gone—when had he put it away?—and now he held a paint brush. The silver droplets of his blood hung in the air, and—carefully, painstakingly carefully—Suga dipped his brush and began connecting them. A child completing an outline. An ancient astronomer, creating narrative, creating life from the universe’s chaos. 

As Suga painted, something happened to the moon. It seemed to escape its bonds, growing larger, almost warped, filling the whole horizon, the whole sky, curling downward over them like a dome. Daichi’s felt dizzier and dizzier, felt the walls of the world closing in. He took a step toward Suga, and then another. He had to get to him before the moon consumed them both, had to pull him away, take him downstairs, anything, just get away, away from the moon, away from the constant breathing that gathered him up and tossed him aside, again, again, again.

He reached the edge of the circle. “Suga,” he said, and his throat ached with the effort of speech, like he was lifting the weight of the moon with his voice alone. “Suga, please.”

Suga’s eyes were on his work, but Daichi could see him shaking. He was still bleeding, blood dripping from the tips of his fingers & down the leg of his jeans, staining it red, red, red. “Suga,” Daichi said again. “There’s too much blood. Please. Please.”

Suga’s constellation painting seemed to be endless, more stars stretching out in patterns before him as he lost more and more blood. He was pale, ashen, looked almost two dimensional in this weird warped space, like a paper doll pinned to a photo of the moon, except that he never stopped moving, his brush precise.

Daichi lifted a hand. He’d promised—but they would both be crushed, surely, Suga couldn’t stand against this alone, maybe he’d made him promise because he wanted to keep him safe, that seemed like Suga, stupid self-sacrificing bastard, thinking he had to bear this weight alone when Daichi would give up all his strength for him in a heartbeat. Suga had probably not wanted to ask him for that, had probably thought Daichi wouldn’t want to help. If he just joined him in the circle, he could help. 

Suga swayed, his brush and voice faltering, and Daichi bit clean through his lip. Suga needed him. He had to help.

He took a step forward, across the line of light.

His whole body _popped_ like his ears at a pressure change. For a moment all he saw was Suga’s face as he spun to face him—his eyes, half-lidded, widening in shock and horror—and then nothing but deep, red-tinged blackness.

+

He woke up, his whole body aching, to the raw, sniffing sobs of someone who had been crying for a long time.

His eyes ached when he tried to move them. His whole body ached when he tried to move anything. His throat was so dry he felt like he’d been eating sand. But he managed—minutely—to turn his head.

He was in a hospital bed. Suga—his wrist bandaged, his jeans still covered in blood, was curled up in the chair by his bed. His eyes were closed, his eyelids raw. Tears were leaking sluggishly down his cheeks and dripping off his chin. Daichi shivered, even that slight motion sending pain shooting down his spine. He wondered if he would ever be able to forget the sight of Suga swaying and bleeding out on the rooftop, letting his own life slip away to—what? Protect a world that didn’t know he existed?

It would be hard enough to forget the sight of Suga crying like this—dull, hopeless crying that anticipated no end.

He swallowed, swallowed again. “Don’t cry,” he said, and it came out a croak. “Please. I’m—I’m sorry.”

Suga’s eyes flew open, and he was on his feet in a second. His hands fluttered, and his eyes swept over Daichi’s face. “Daichi,” he breathed, “god, I thought—” He stopped and shook his head wildly, as if he feared to even say it aloud.

Daichi smiled at him, or at least tried to. He had a feeling it came out a little flat and desperate. “Don’t be stupid,” he said, “I’m fine.”

Suga gnawed at his trembling lips. “You—you _idiot_ , what were you thinking, you promised that no matter what—” He wiped at his eyes. “You could have died!”

Daichi raised a shoulder in a shrug. “I didn’t care,” he said. “You _were_ dying.”

Suga scowled at him, but he didn’t deny it. “So you thought, what, better throw my life away in some useless heroic _shit_ —”

Daichi hummed. “Better,” he agreed. “Better we both go than me standing by and watching you die.”

Suga stared at him. “You _idiot_ ,” he said again, but soft, now. He stepped up to Daichi’s bedside and took his hand. Daichi took a breath. Somehow, when Suga touched him, he hurt less. “I’m just glad you passed out before you touched me. If you hadn’t, we both definitely would be dead.”

He picked up Daichi’s hand and twined their fingers together, palm to palm.

Daichi stared at him. “Suga,” he said, “are there. Partners?”

Suga lowered their hands, but didn’t let go. “Partners?”

“Yeah,” Daichi said, licking his lips. “Like, friends, or, or whatever who work together on spells. Because I can’t—” he took a breath. “It doesn’t feel right, having you put yourself in danger like this and not being able to do anything about it.”

Suga stared at him. “You don’t have to do that. Daichi, the power, it’s—it’s great, yeah, but if you ever need anything done by magic I can do it for you and you wouldn’t have to deal with the responsibility—”

“The responsibility is the only reason I want to do it,” Daichi said. “You said you have to do stuff like this every few months, whenever stuff like the blood moon happens and the walls are thin. I know this was just the first time and maybe they’ll get easier but Suga—” 

Suga was staring at their joined hands again, his brows furrowed. With an effort, Daichi raised his other hand, brushing his knuckles against his jaw to get him to look up. “I can’t watch you do that to yourself again,” he said softly, “and I can’t bear the thought of you doing it without me.”

Suga stared at him. Sometimes after he did magic something silver and otherworldly lingered in his eyes. Now, though, he was nothing but Suga—warm-eyed, human, turning his face into Daichi’s palm and pressing the smallest, almost accidental kiss to his palm. “Friends or whatever, hm?” He asked, his voice a little wicked, his lips moving soft against Daichi’s skin.

Daichi flushed hot. “Shut up,” he said.

Suga shook his head rapidly, his smile growing. “You know,” he said, “I thought I caught you looking sometimes—”

“Sometimes?” Daichi muttered. “Try every second of every fucking day—”

“—but I said to myself, noo, wishful thinking—which, as a witch, you have to be careful to not give into—”

“Suga—”

“—because as a witch a wish once wished cannot be unwished, which—”

“—are you just trying to say _witch_ and _which_ and _wish_ as many times as you can in the same sentence, why are you the one babbling, I’m the one you embarrassed into confessing—”

“—we’re both embarrassed, thank you, but anyway I’m glad to know I’m right, which, really, I should have known—”

Daichi sat up, sliding the hand he already had at Suga’s jaw into his hair and pulling him in to kiss him hard. Suga took a sharp breath and then kissed him back, the desperation in it giving lie to his lightheartedness a moment before. He gripped Daichi’s shoulders like he was afraid to let him go.

“Yeah,” said Daichi when he pulled back, “you really should have known.”

Suga’s eyes were still closed, his fingers trailing up the back of Daichi’s neck to play with his hair. “Fuck,” he said, more breath than word. “I’m so fucking glad you’re alive.”

Daichi kept their foreheads pressed together, breathing with him, and the world around them was still.


End file.
